


Assumption

by ayatsujik



Series: The Exorcist Chronicles [1]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 22:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12591976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayatsujik/pseuds/ayatsujik
Summary: Seiji grows up, and his hair grows out. Nanase and Natori are part of this process.





	Assumption

**Author's Note:**

> I made it! Happy birthday to Matoba Seiji, 2017/11/01, adorably situated somewhere on the psychopathy spectrum. I can't wait to see where your story goes.

 

甘い悪い　赤と青

sweet and wrong 　this red and blue

  
\-- Cocco, "The Colour Violet" 「すみれ色」

 

  
Seiji hadn't intentionally chosen to keep long hair, at first.

As a student, he'd cut it out of necessity. Teachers had to implement the rules of their institutions, and he'd seen no reason to disobey. Defiance would have been more work than reward, and short hair was merely one of various conditions that accompanied the wearing of his uniform. But such restrictions on appearance vanished upon his graduation from high school. After that, his hair simply grew. No one told him what to do with it. It didn't particularly bother him, and he didn't feel like visiting the barber. So he let it be.

The two years after leaving high school were filled with clan duties. When he wasn't out on exorcism assignments, he was tasked with reading through a vast library of files and accounts and manuals, in order to familiarise himself with the Matoba's history and activities. He also had to attend business meetings alongside the core group of elders who represented the clan's eleven families. He'd been excused from most of these obligations as a student, but no longer. An array of old men took turns to test him relentlessly on his professional knowledge and understanding of inter- and intra-clan relations. They all bowed to him, their speech gilded with courtesy. They'd always treated him thus, even as a child. But now it was apparent who aligned themselves with him, and who didn't. The humilities of those in the former camp bordered on excruciating, while those in the latter freighted their words with fresh severity. In both cases, questions concealed demands, and judgments wore the guise of offhand comments. The current head unfailingly reminded him that he expected much of his successor, and that there were those in the extended clan who still doubted whether a mere boy would really be able to steer the Matoba's ship on a forward course, however strong his spirit powers were.

In response, Seiji smiled constantly, and parried these verbal blows with language that matched theirs in excessive politeness. He kept himself in a mental position where he could look down on everyone. Humans, compared to youkai, could pose even bigger threats. Instinct told him it was good to watch your friends and better not to strike directly at your opponents, given the essential malleability of those categories. Observation and patience and strategy were avenues to long-term survival.

He believed in his own talent for thriving in adversity. Conflict interested him, particularly because so many people disliked it. It created room for surprise. Moreover, his experience and knowledge of exorcism deepened with each assignment he successfully concluded. Still, there was an endless mountain of things to learn, and some days left him exhausted. On those days he felt a weight inside him, a dank fog of anxiety. A famous fragment from the Chinese classics came to him, one evening, as he was going through yet another stack of clan records: _surrounded by the songs of Chu_. That night he dreamed of the ancient siege, where the general trapped in the canyon listened to enemy voices destroy the spirit of his troops.

He awoke to the sun streaming over his face, and the determination that it would be different with him. He had no troops to worry about, for a start. Then he got up, dressed in one of the black suits that now formed the majority of his Western-style wardrobe, and went down for a breakfast meeting.

Sometimes he had to take deep, slow breaths, in order to think clearly, and to stop the shadows in his room from seeming darker and sharper than they actually were. At those times his mind's eye tended to focus on a certain someone. This person had always kept his distance, despite their closeness in age. He had brown hair and infrequently wore glasses that didn't suit him. An unknown kind of ink-black youkai inhabited his skin.

They hadn't met in almost a year; Seiji's clan duties continuously prevented him from attending the professional gatherings. But he heard, through Nanase, that this boy persisted in his own battles, standing tall amidst mocking gossip while he steadily built his reputation in the worlds of exorcism and entertainment. Apparently he'd also learned to use a smile as a mask.

Seiji couldn't quite picture it, but that meant he had something to look forward to, whenever they next met. He wasn't sure when that would happen, given how much he still had to do before assuming office.

/Power breeds fear, and fear creates resentment,/ Nanase once said, at a teatime briefing between the two of them. Her voice was calm and matter-of fact. /But big fish don't let the small fry overwhelm them./

He understood what she meant. In addition, he appreciated knowing that she saw her family's fortunes tied to the Matoba's overall prosperity. The Nanase house, while adept at maintaining their position, tended to avoid petty squabbles for influence. He could take nothing for granted, though.

In the midst of all this, his hair kept on growing. It inched down his neck, and then past his shoulders, a fine sheet of dark, silky strands. It took more time to clean and comb, but he found the extended ritual of care strangely soothing. And, it occurred to him one night, long hair had its uses. Something with which to seal magic contracts, or to barter with spirits. On this, he was proved correct. The ranks of the Matoba's conscripted youkai soon saw a sharp increase. 

The more conservative elders openly disapproved of his hair's length even as they conceded its usefulness to his work. Seiji laughed to himself, taking notes on those who cast veiled aspersions on his masculinity, and otherwise ignored them.   
  
  
*  
  
  
In the spring of his twentieth year, the law recognised him as an adult, and he officially claimed the title of clan head.

The ceremonies for his coming-of-age and succession were held on the same day, making efficient use of that week's schedule. The former took place at a shrine whose priests were frequent patrons of the Matoba's services, the latter in the large meeting room of the main family house. Seiji put on the formal hakama and black kimono emblazoned with the Matoba crest, and tied back his hair in its new style. The night before, he'd taken a pair of scissors and trimmed a section of the hair on both sides of his head to chin-length, leaving the rest untouched. The remaining hair now reached the small of his back, and he used a white cord to bind it into a slim ponytail. It bore a slight resemblance to his student cut, but the front locks now framed a longer, leaner face, whose smile had discarded traces of sunniness for a cover of cloud.

No other clan head had ever kept long hair. He would be the first in this, too.

Both ceremonies involved speeches he didn't listen to, and extended periods of sitting in seiza position. He sipped from small saucers of sake that symbolised his first passage into adulthood, despite having already developed a significant alcohol threshold over the last year. Various elders, from the Matoba and other clans, had deemed it necessary to test his capacity for liquor. He wondered if he'd disappointed them by never getting drunk; he knew his own body too well to fall into that trap.

Towards the close of the succession ceremony, the retiring clan head knelt before a low table. It held a long strip of bright white silk several fingers wide, an ink stone, and a calligraphy brush. All these objects glowed with the aura of magic. He rubbed the ink stick into the stone's shallow well of water, and dipped the brush into the resulting bluish-black pool. Then he moved the brush tip over the cloth so it produced a line of arcane characters over the white surface, invisible to those without spirit powers.

Having accomplished this, he picked up the cloth and got to his feet, walking over to where Seiji sat, and bound the cloth around his head so that it covered his right eye. Then, and only then, did he take off the similarly-inscribed strip which had protected his own right eye. There were no explanations of what this ritual meant: everyone who had any reason to be there knew.

"We earnestly pray for your constant safety and success in guiding our clan to a flourishing future," the outgoing head intoned. He placed his hands on the tatami floor before him and bowed deeply in Seiji's direction. Everyone else in the room did the same, even his parents.

And, with that, the ceremony was over.

So it was done. Here he was, at the apex of a clan and a business. It didn't feel quite as exciting as he'd once imagined it would be. Maybe preparing for so long made things less fun. Nonetheless, he felt a sweet frisson run through him. It all started from here. Now he would call the shots: which jobs to take, and how their considerable resources would be invested. 

Seiji arranged his hair so it fell over the strip of cloth on either side of his face. He breathed in, feeling its cool, light pressure shielding his eye. Its ink smelled faintly of charred pine; the spell of protection woven into its fabric made it tingle slightly.

He looked out at the room, slightly flattened in his narrowed field of view. Nanase, at that juncture, began clapping. With some reluctance, others followed suit. His left eye met her gaze, and he couldn't help smiling back.  
  
  
*  
  
  
One of his first scheduled events, as clan head, was to attend the professional gathering held not long after the ceremony of assumption. The purpose of this was to formally present him, as the Matoba's new leader, to the exorcist community at large.

It wasn't an official celebration, but word got around. Someone - Nanase, most likely - had arranged for a particularly fine selection of alcohol to be served. There was a larger turnout than usual, and a long line of colleagues who were at pains to congratulate him. Soon there would be flagrant attempts to buy his goodwill, including useless gifts sent to his house that would require perfunctory notes of gratitude, and invitations to more business meals that he wouldn't be able to turn down.

Seiji, in one of the black kimono he alternated with the black suits, suppressed a sigh. He'd expected all of this to happen. It was just another kind of occupational hazard. Right now, though, there was only one person he wanted to meet. He didn't know if he'd come. He kept an eye out on the crowd in the main banquet hall as he absently made small talk with people he couldn't ignore, to no avail.

Somebody tapped him on his left shoulder.

He turned to see Nanase, who bowed apologetically to his conversation partner as she led him away. Leaning in close, she whispered into his ear that the person he was looking for had been spotted on the balcony.

Seiji stared at her. She winked, a small, knowing smile on her face, and excused herself. Her grey-haired figure wove itself into the throng of humans and youkai, disappearing from view in a matter of seconds.

Making his way to the balcony, he saw that Nanase's information had been accurate. A tall man was standing at the balustrade, looking out at the evening sky. He was draped in a kimono the colour of sandalwood and a dark brown overcoat. He held a wineglass in his hand. Two kimono-clad youkai, visibly female, hovered protectively over him.

So he'd already acquired shiki. Seiji felt a pang of envy, followed by a strange sense of something like relief. He didn't have time to process these emotions: the man had turned to face him. One of the youkai, with a blindfold and two ram-like horns, had alerted him to his presence. She and her sister shiki shot him suspicious glares as he approached.

"It's been a while, Shuuichi-san." 

Natori nodded, and they sized each other up.

As expected, he was wearing the glasses he used to focus his spirit sight. They did little to obscure the handsomeness of his face, whose features had sharpened. He'd grown, too; they were almost the same height. His shoulders had broadened. Otherwise, he looked the same.

He suspected Natori's thoughts were running along similar lines, although he had no way of knowing.

"You look well, Seiji." Natori smiled back at him, then, a sudden, too-smooth curve of the lips in the way Nanase had described. Despite this, a tinge of wariness lingered in his expression.

"So do you. I hear both your careers are in fine form?"

"I get by, thanks," Natori said, and seamlessly changed the subject. "As for you, congratulations are in order, aren't they? Everyone's saying the Matoba are unmistakably in good hands."

"Is that so?" Seiji laughed, coming to stand beside him. The balcony overlooked a wide patch of forest, the flowering trees tinted with patches of colour. A graceful ridge of mountains stood beyond it. "I don't need to tell you this, Shuuichi-san, but everyone says whatever they want, especially if they think it'll benefit them."

"I can't argue with that," Natori said dryly. He finished the last of his wine, and handed the glass to the shiki with long, dark hair. "Thank you, Urihime," he said, as she went to return it to the main hall.

"I should congratulate you on finding such useful shiki," Seiji remarked.

Natori looked at him, thoughtfully, and quirked a corner of his mouth. "You'll manage, I'm sure."

They stood in silence for a while, watching the setting sun.

Seiji briefly wondered, given Natori's circumstances, if he'd also gone through ceremonies for adulthood and official titles. It seemed highly unlikely. He'd heard that Natori had stopped living with his family at least a year ago, and that his grandfather had died. And, of course, there was no longer a clan to recognise his position. He thought about how that would feel, the kind of freedom it promised. It appeared a seductive prospect in comparison to his numerous duties. Ultimately, though, he knew he needed the challenge of the clan, the edifice of power it offered in exchange for the shackles he'd willingly donned.

He hadn't convinced Natori to join him, as a boy. And they'd both become adults, heading further and further apart. 

There was no one else who would call him by his first name, now.

These were factual observations. As conclusions, they were entirely unsurprising. Yet somehow they stirred something in him totally opposed to reason. Suddenly he felt that he, too, wanted a drink.

"Matoba-sama?"

The voice that broke into their space was low and sultry. They both turned to see another female youkai, curvaceously green-skinned and curly-haired, hovering behind them.

"Nanase-sama asked me to tell you to go to the meeting room inside the main hall. She said there's someone important you need to see."

"There always is," Seiji coolly replied, though he was grateful for the diversion. "Tell Nanase I'll be there shortly."

"Only as a favour to her, not to you," Green-skin retorted, and drifted back indoors.

"Well, then," Seiji said, as she departed. "I'll be off."

He'd started to leave when Natori spoke, his voice sombre. "Seiji."

He stopped, and glanced back at him over his left shoulder.

"That eye of yours," Natori continued. His hands were thrust into his jacket pockets. A small, reptilian shadow flickered across his cheek and down his neck. "Take care."

"...You're as sentimental as ever, Shuuichi-san." Seiji laughed, softly. He drew his haori coat closer, as if to ward off the chill of a spring evening. "Worry about your own self, first."

He walked away, his steps slow and deliberate, aware of Natori's gaze on his back. Night had almost fallen, and a strong breeze stirred his long hair.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "Surrounded by the songs of Chu": 四面楚歌, an idiom common in both Chinese and Japanese, taken from Sima Qian's _Records of the Grand Historian_. Refers to Xiang Yu's defeat at the [Battle of Gaixia](https://www.ancient.eu/Battle_of_Gaixia/).
> 
> For a quasi-prequel to Matoba and Natori in this piece, see Part I of [Three Takes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12577260).


End file.
